Abstract: A novel electromagnetic shunt tuned mass damper (EMS-TMD) is proposed for structural vibration control. A new feature of the damper is the electromagnetic damping element that replaces the viscous damping of the traditional double tuned mass dampers. To further improve the damping performance and robustness of the damper, a double electromagnetic shunt tuned mass damper (DEMS-TMD) is designed. According to the Alembert’s theorem, the dynamic model of the coupled system DEMS-TMD and a single degree of freedom structure under seismic excitation is established. Based on the Monte Carlo pattern search method with the target of minimizing the value of the maximum dynamic amplification coefficient of the main structure displacement, the optimal parameters of DEMS-TMD, the structure frequency ratio, the electrical frequency ratio, the electromagnetic damping ratio and the electromechanical coupling coefficient are obtained, which provides the theoretical guidance for damping parameter design. The frequency and time domain simulations of the DEMS-TMD are conducted to analyze the performance of the vibration suppression of the DEMS-TMD. The results show that the reduction of the peak and RMS values of main structure displacement of the DEMS-TMD is superior to traditional parallel double tuned mass dampers (DTMD) in the frequency domain simulations. The reduction of the peak and RMS values of displacement and acceleration of the DEMS-TMD is superior to traditional DTMD in the time domain simulations, which shows the better damping effect of the DEMS-TMD on structures.